(Reuters) – European shares were largely unchanged at the start of an event-heavy week as investors braced for U.S. inflation data and interest rate decisions from major global central banks, while weakness in metal prices knocked down miners.
The pan-European STOXX 600 was flat after climbing to its highest level since February 2022 on Friday.
Basic resources shares dropped 1.5%, leading sectoral declines, as prices of most metals moved lower against a stronger dollar.
With bets of rate cuts taking centre stage, key U.S. inflation reports this week will be closely watched for monetary policy outlook as investors brace for rate verdicts from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday and the Bank of England and European Central Bank on Thursday.
Among individual stocks, Encavis dropped 4.4% to the bottom of the STOXX 600 after Morgan Stanley downgraded the German renewable energy producer to “underweight” from “equal-weight”.
Schibsted jumped 8.1% after the Norwegian media group said it has made a non-binding agreement to sell its news media operations to Tinius Trust.
(Reporting by Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)
